to die in afghanistan based are totally bogus arguments that make no sense but that's just my opinion. every six months there was an e.u. summit and every six months that your team that's just a few days before. location and date were kept confidential the booking was made two years in advance. left behind was a clear message to the following you summit on the heads of governments a few days later. adopt the single market the monetary union infrastructure projects a flexible labor market deregulation downsize public services austerity measures

and so on and so on the whole your liberal agenda for them basically our picture got confirmed by an american scholar stepping into the topic maria green cowles i was interested in doing something about europe and something about the european union i started talking with some of the c.e.o.'s and in particular the corporate affairs managers of these firms to ask them what happened and everybody had a little piece of the story and then i met with keith richardson. keith and i would talk about different things and he would give me some ideas and i'd go and i'd talk with other individuals and then i'd come back with more questions and sometimes keith had the answers and sometimes he didn't and finally i believe it was on my seventh meeting with keith when i said to keith you know i can write about this i can have all these different. but i really want to see the pieces of

paper said to me well you know i have a bunch of cardboard boxes in the basement of the e.r.c. we haven't opened them they're from the earlier days we just we just put this material in the boxes and of course and you know in the back of my mind i was very excited thinking this is it. maria green calls came across a telling. it was from visit decker see your phillips. in december nine hundred eighty five he wrote to the heads of state just before the signing of the single european facts which started the process of the single market . the crux of the tallackson is as follows you know we don't know what you're going to do but we want you to act you can act one way or another if you choose not to have a single market program then you have given us no choice but perhaps take our business

elsewhere. this was a clear fred the year two you were presented sixty percent of western europe's industrial output this was blackmail. why did not a single government say anything about the deck or taylor hicks. or about the other friend start followed. they were elected representatives. but we felt that this was a betrayal and we wanted to do something about it it's it was important for a bigger public to know about this and we decided to publish a book. besides collecting data we started to make interviews.

undercover interviews. finally in spring one thousand nine hundred seventy we assembled the results of our investigations and interviews into a report europe. rescheduled the launch for the big use some of them so that all the media would be there we were excited as. we had prepared the book launch and half an hour before the first friends started arriving but. very little or no pressure showed up. so unfortunately our first public events was really not noticed as part of. the job of the writers down this road block a very groove a key exercise the strengthening of the rules based system of multilateral craig.

and perhaps most important the establishment of a strong broadly based well trained organizer. i started to work on the financial side assist gats negotiations that were really the time when i discovered this if we like we'd like to do that. we've come to the end of the most far reaching trade negotiation ever. the negotiators of the hundred and seventeen governments involved i'm a cheap to make stuart race excess. with your approval therefore my gavel the euro why roses continue. in telemarketers. was becoming any very important market rich market with the high

g.d.p. per capita and that when the european union was going outside and negotiate as a bloc they had a real power because it was a biggest exporter the biggest importer the biggest foreign investor. but so in britain the trade commission of european union was complaining that i was every time he was going to negotiate with the united states in front of him we see is counterpart you know here you have your office and gardener is suited for it is and on his back he would have c.e.o.'s of big banks a big insurance companies telling please do that for me please do that for us but winterland britain was turning his back to see where its report was it was actually having only some ministers saying don't do this don't do that and please do that it only but not more and he was really not very happy you know because we discovered that there is a whole world of lobbyists in washington to tell the government what they want in

the trade association. and we thought this is the way we have to go we have to do something like that the european institutions is asking for it things you can situation cannot only rely on the information given by the member states and the expert in the finance ministry is why they need to get the information directly from the the banks at the insurance company. so they're not a point in time european trade commission a so in britain decided ok there was association i'm not really serious about this issue i am going to invite for dinner fourteen see you of the major services companies in europe so it's about big banks big telecom big insurance big decisions services big transport services big tourism companies when you take all the different sectors it is actually making about seventy percent of the g.d.p. in europe so we invited the bunch of forty of those. and it.

after the dinner i said well now that you've got some some food by the commission you owe me something you have to do something for me people sometimes think that the commission comes up with ideas out of the blue with and pushes them it's not so tool commission is thirsty for ideas from the cannot make acton's to help us to decide what to put food in the interests of europe. this is where the idea of creating a network of association and companies pushing for the trade in service is used by the private sector came up i became managing director of the open services for. relief. in general night and after nine we had. eleven months to prepare seattle first. a ministerial conference as a creation of the seventies a shouting match metaphor and the idea was that this meeting is going to lounge is

amazing and brown that's so you know britain had so much push for. britain never got to see how tall the entire commission had to resign because of the massive fraud several commissioners were involved in. seattle the millennium round itself took a completely unexpected turn. i was based in the hotel and as a conference was in the sheraton five hundred metres away and i have not been allowed to go out of the hotel because it was one protest or blocking the door by lying. and it was a police officer beside him and asking can i go outside please i would like to go and do my job. i was going to assist his allowance of the c. s. around so that we will enter into a new phase a negotiation for leaving. as

a lever zation of the service. i remember that commissioner let me as being blocked i mean yes we name for two and terry's car but the car couldn't move because of those people they're just there and the policeman say please go away in five metres so that the v.i.p.'s here can do his job. many n.g.o.s say that yourself is a secret secret organisation having secret meetings who can commission all the everything is on their website i mean i am doing my job by contacting the commission with officials responsible for my file if anybody else would like to do the same there's a phone number he's on the in the world on the website i'm just doing my job and i don't have anything specific but is a commission has some relationship with the surface because it commission is willing to get some information from the services sectors before negotiating on their behalf because this is what we're talking about trade is done by companies not n.g.o.s. b c

c i knew a dinner at the friends of yours which is really a very big russell's organization lots and lots of people from different countries different jobs different walks of life who do all interested in. how can you develop how can we be right things to do wrong and how can i build a lot we've already done. the inclusive thing trying to. think tanks in brussels are you feeling a part of the vacuum that exists now that you would have thought that there was no european probably to greece. to syntax to step into that vacuum and the forums in which something like a debate happens inside the brussels bubble. there are national politicians here european politicians through a civil servant said the dreaded you know it creates a dear good diplomat strip businessman professors from universities. we'll still

see people wondering about bristles it's a bit like it really if you want it to still want to know. when i will actually be on the team not at my job is to keep in contact. think tanks are not themselves lobbyists but they are part of the landscape of lobbying because companies used them to transmit their demands from their their perspectives and hence all of these are heavily dependent on industry funding. several people are sponsoring it microsoft is one of american business is presently new at microsoft is one of the why not. will have had think tanks in the process that were directly from the by the oil industry and that were working to sort out about whether there is such a thing as climate change and whether it's important for governments to act is to reduce c o two emissions. you can set up research

institutes to provide you with. research that's kind of strengthens your position. you can launch message p.r. campaigns and flood the media with your information. what also happens is setting up fake n.g.o.s as happened in the big battle about the software patents law suddenly there were these advertisements from an enduro that's said it was representing small and medium sized companies puts the financial backers of this and she hopes for microsoft and disappear. and then it's all about money in the it's one person one vote but in the brussels basin if it's one euro one fault the problem is we don't know about the money behind politics we don't know how much is being spent on not being by whom and on which issues. we need to cut this on the democrats control it has to be made visible. the role is. decision making what

is to roll of a large company like or shall. we speak your language will not advance. news programs and documentaries in spanish. to you. use a little tentative angle of stories. that the spanish find out more visit eye to.

wealthy british style. market why not. find out what's really happening to the global economy with max cons or for a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines kaiser report.

so one of my first testimonies before the european commission was a very very awakening spirits. but. i had one commissioner interrupt me and say well we understand you had a problem in the united states with lobbying activities but he went on to say but you know this is brussels and this is europe we don't have that kind of activity going on here which just kind of floored me that anyone could be so naive. more perhaps the fact of answer was ok i'll concede that a lot of these k. street lobbyists and the professional lobbyists here in the united states may be corrupt however i know every major k.

street lobby shop also has a lobby shop in brussels and so we're in your bed europe don't you want to know if you think that we are so corruptible and so corrupting don't you want to know who we are and who's paying for us and what it is we're trying to get you to do for us. we have to decide to regulate lobbying for a long time in two thousand and four the new commission came in and for the first time ten eastern european countries were part of. the first burns a commission started its in autumn two thousand and four we wrote an open letter to the commission president. signed by over fifty n.g.o.s.

i would just like to say thank you. that's a very sincere thank you for the confidence which you just voiced and invested in me and i'd like to say to you that i understand this vote of confidence as also implying huge responsibility on my part and we are going to work hard give our all to serve europe to serve the institutions of the european union and to serve all our coast citizens of europe that. the response was a very short formal letter saying we received your letter sent you very interesting . no substantial response.

so we sent the same letter to all the presidents of the commission. and suddenly towards the end of february we were contacted by the office of the same color as commissioner from estonia responsible for administration inviting us to come over. so we went to mr callouses office which was somewhere in the top of the building. we didn't know what we had to expect from this meeting we had never been approached by a commission so in that sense it was very exciting we welcomed by mr cullison himself and one of his cabinet members. had a brochure and that made us smile it was a lovely plan of god to brussels which was. very critical look at industry lobbying in the you written by eric and me in our our colleagues. when i started the

commission and i really souls are so weak suspicion surrounding so this isn't making in european union. of course i. say establish for myself a purpose to reduce the suspicions. told a step he was going to launch this european transparency initiative and we immediately saw. political. business. sense. in the street. european commission is going to. dissolve interests represented. the decision making process have to happen in a transparent manner the commission can see that's important to know.

what the interests they represent and against what financial background. say efforts to do creates a speech or to make the speech. of course outlined main principles of transparency initiative which will be done. a lot of controversial reactions and if you know without financial transparency we'll never find out who really is behind the campaign stick. a little bit more control on ourselves wouldn't harm our reputation with our voters. transparency must not for closer contact with real life with interest groups or groups without interest thank you commissioner callous and certainly understand this. when the european union was considering the european transparency initiative they were

looking for some advice as to how some of these achievements happened in the us and as a result i was brought out about half a dozen different times to testify before the european commission in the european parliament to tell the truth i was very impressed with the same color as when i first started working with them in the european commission some callers helped really the whole significance of needing transparency. he was very adamant at first about setting up a mandatory disclosure system full transparency but halfway through the process some colors came up against the political reality and. after free years of struggle and political fight and exhausted commissioner call us and to the stage to finally launch a lobby register a group. with little known or often the. so

quite that unlockable moment today. years ago i proposed to set up the register of lobbyists and in order to enhance the unspent of sand and legitimacy i don't say i'm evil decision making process and that is you stand over as from today. so we broke post. very solution because i was i am am comments that cease would suit for all expect basins and i think that those days there is a very important moment of cultural change. concerning zeese. aspect of this season making in european institutions. some colors introduced a voluntary system against all recommendations by n.g.o.s and the experts this was the best he could get. we have tried for over two years now to find

out who have blocked colossus or original intention. where it's other commissioners the commission secretary and the lobbyist themselves. months after the financial crisis started in october two thousand and eight. appointed independent high level group on financial supervision. the group was to work our proposals for the regulation of the financial markets and to find a way out of the financial crisis. eight so-called wise men were appointed to this group. shocked a lot and i must say. i'm a weeding out my easing mccarty leszek culture over each recipient as fernandes

and last nuba. we looked into the independence of this independent group and we found some less honestly thinks. the legacy is the co-chair of a financial lobby organization. to lehman brothers. leading to citi group leasing to goldman sachs. mccarty nuber and bunch of always are notorious deregulators. and paris fernandes works to provide financial market into. three of the eight were directly linked to american banks all of which were directly involved in causing the crisis. which in addition closely linked to american right wing think tanks like the cato institute who is one of the closest advisers to the bush administration he was also involved in the earlier and think tanks in brussels and poland and the u.k.

. of a single of these wise men who was in favor of strict regulation now the single one of them was really independence and the effect of these eight wise men on overcoming the financial crisis was zero the main thing that happened lost a lot of public money was flowing to the banks. is the. law this whole affair has a horrible sense of deserve all the same financial institutions that were bailed out with taxpayers' money i know making a fortune from greece's misfortune well those same taxpayers are paying the price in deep cuts to their salaries and social services.

after twenty years of deregulation and liberalisation suddenly the european union herself was at the edge of being blown up. what is at stake is not only the european union but also democracy and the future of the values that we hold dear. was a dis what we europeans had wanted. wasn't really naïve to have a european dream. he did in the human nature and you have nothing on. your list half about science and. and we need to make sure that we keep only the good and therefore you need regulation.

when you live in a society you have groups because otherwise people are going too fast on the motorway because people are not respected elders because the stronger takes place this is this is human nature what we have done to go and make sure that we live together is by creativity strange things by creating an authority that everyone respect.

new year's celebrations on the move without the traditional t.v. all festive food surprising meetings and new adventures stories of love found and love lost our russians teach foreigners to celebrate then biggest holiday of the year for love go to st petersburg by train over new year there may be miracles. we are facing a lot of problems. because no one. no good schools.

what's not enough wealth is a law in the local needs you might want to. give down for a wrap up artist i was fights about how much christ's. fights. are right. you know how sometimes you see a story and it seems so you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else and you hear or see some other part of it and realize everything you thought you don't know i'm tom harpur welcome to the big picture.

little. golden globe. i live on. the street. you. wish. good luck good. luck. and. come out.